China's external debt reaches 785.17 bln USD

BEIJING, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- China's outstanding external debt increased by 34 billion U.S. dollars in the second quarter to reach 785.17 billion U.S. dollars by the end of June this year, the country's foreign exchange regulator said Monday.

The amount does not include the outstanding external debt of the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions or that of Taiwan, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement on its website.

Of the total outstanding external debt, registered external debt reached 495.07 billion U.S. dollars, while the balance of trade credit between enterprises amounted to 290.1 billion U.S. dollars.

Most of the debt owed to foreign creditors resulted from short-term borrowing, as outstanding external debt with a term of one year or less amounted to 588.22 billion U.S. dollars, or 75 percent of the total, up from 74.2 percent at the end of March, according to SAFE.

In terms of currency structure, debt in U.S. dollars accounted for 77.77 percent of the outstanding registered external debt, up 1.1 percentage points from that of the end of March.

Debt in euros accounted for 7.51 percent , down from 8.23 percent in March; while debt in yen took up 6.99 percent, compared with 7.05 percent in March.

According to SAFE data, China accrued medium- and long-term external debt amounting to 21.25 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of the year, as well as repaid 14.78 billion U.S. dollars in principal and 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in interest during the period.